Broadcasting (Oct 1931-Dec 1932)

EADIO HISTORY that will go down in the pages of time was made on Dec. 12, 1901, when Guglielmo Marconi, young Italian inventor, stood on the bleak Newfoundland shore and elatedly heard his colleagues across the Atlantic in England tap out three dots that form the letter "S." This was the first wireless signal to be heard across the sea. What a far cry from that meager experiment, considered at the time even by the late Thomas Edison as an impossibility, to the globe-girdling radiotelegraph services of today! What a far cry, indeed, from that test with crude equipment to the international program that brought Marconi's voice by radio from Italy to be heard by the American audience over an NBC network exactly 30 years later. Marconi today, at the age of 57, a Nobel prize winner of 1909, roams the seas on his yacht Elettra, studying radiotelephony, static, fading and wave propagation. At this moment, along the coast of Italy, he is experimenting with the ultra-short waves, from which so much is expected in the future of radio and television. An experimenter as a youth in his native Bologna, Italy, where he was born on April 25, 1874, he will undoubtedly pursue his talent for discovery to his declining days. Joseph Marconi, father, of the great inventor, was an inventor of sorts himself. Anna Jameson Marconi, Guglielmo's mother, was of ' PERSONAL NOTES WILLIAM J. WEBER, formerly advertising manager of the Charlotte I (N. C.) News and Observer, has ' joined CBS as sales director of its ■ Dixie network, with headquarters in Charlotte. E. S. MITTENDORF, manager of WKRC, Cincinnati, will remain in that capacity. The station is now owned by CBS, having recently been purchased from Sam Pickard, CBS vice president, and John Boyd, Chicago attorney. Irish extraction. The son was a delicate child who found his chief happiness in books instead of rugged play. There was a good scientific library in Villa Griffone, the family residence, and the lad reveled in it. Elementary studies were mastered at Florence and later at Leghorn, where his interest in physics was conspicuous. In 1894, the youth Marconi conceived a plan of utilizing Hertzian waves for signaling. .He discussed it with Prof. August Righi, Italian physicist. Together they made tests at the Righi summer home. Then Marconi succeeded in sending signals across his father's estate. He went to England and demonstrated his discovery. On March 27, 1899, he sent and received the first message without •wires across the English Channel between Dover and Boulogne, a demonstration by a 25-year-old youth that fairly made the world sit up and take notice. Returning to Italy, he was honored and feted and praised. But he was soon back in the laboratory, and within a few months he was in England again to demonstrate the practical applications of his discovery aboard a vessel following a yacht race off the Irish coast. Then he went to America to "cover" the America's Cup Races for a New York newspaper — again successfully showing that wireless offered the greatest boon yet known to maritime travel. EUGENE L. SLATER, recently Hudson Motor Car account executive of C. C. Winningham, Inc., Detroit agency, has been appointed commercial representative of the CBS Dixie network, with headquarters at Charlotte, N. C. Mr. Slater is widely known in the agency field, having served national accounts on the West coast, the Canadian territory and in London. THE REV. JOHN J. HARNEY, director of WLWL, New York, is on his way to Rome to spend the Christmas holidays at the Paulist Fathers' House there. He will preach the Advent sermon at Santa Susanna. W. W. BEHRMAN, formerly manager of WGBF, Evansville, Ind., is now manager of WBOW, Terre Haute, and Clarence Leich has succeeded him at WGBF. The Evansville station has also added to its staff Robert Bullard, formerly with WKBF, Indianapolis, and James Walsh, formerly with WOWO, Fort Wayne. DUKE M. PATRICK, assistant general counsel of the Federal Radio Commission, was called to Lafayette, Ind., Dec. 5, by the illness and death of his mother-in-law. He was due to return to Washington about Dec. 15. EDWARD KLAUBER has been elected first vice president of CBS and Lawrence W. Lowman vice president in charge of operations. Klauber has been vice president assisting W. S. Paley, president. Lowman has been assistant secretary and supervisor of operations. ALICE KEITH, broadcasting director of the American School of the Air, and W. C. Bagley, Jr., research specialist in education by radio, and both on the CBS educational department staff, attended the National Convention of State Superintendents of Education in Washington, Dec. 7 and 8. C. D. TAYLOR, for the last three years commercial manager of WBT, Charlotte, N. C, is now commercial manager of WJSV, Alexandria, Va. MISS MARIE ELBS and Milton Samuel, in NBC's publicity department at San Francisco, mail out reams of publicity about others, but they kept their marriage a secret from early in September to late in November. The ceremony took place at Lake Tahoe, Cal. GEORGE MALCOLM-SMITH, of the public relations staff of WTIC, Hartford, is the author of a children's novelette published last month by Rand McNally & Co., Chicago. It is a pseudo-scientific tale of adventure entitled "Professor Peckam's Adventures in a Drop of Water." HOWARD S. LEROY, former assistant solicitor of the State Department and now a practicing attorney in Washington, will conduct a course in radio law, with emphasis on radio, in the School of Law of National University, Washington, during the winter term opening Jan. 4. BEHIND THE MICROPHONE FRANK MUNN, who as "Paul Oliver" on the Palmolive Hour is one of radio's best known tenors, has shed his nom de plume and hereafter will be known by his real name. He began to use his name with his appearance on the "American Album of Familiar Music" program on NBC Dec. 6. ANN WARNER, formerly heard from KPO, San Francisco, and formerly on the staff of the San Francisco Chronicle, on Dec. 4 became director of home service for KFI and KECA, Los Angeles. She is being heard for a half hour daily, except Saturdays and Sundays, with a program called "Ann Warner Chats With Her Neighbors." The program carries out the cooking school theme and has a musical background. GEORGE C. DAWSON, in charge of new commercial programs and broadcast ideas for CBS, has returned to his office after an illness. He played the role of "Daddy" in the "Daddy and Rollo" ethereal sketches. PEGGY CLARKE, formerly manager of WOL, Washington, is now with WJSV, Alexandria, Va., where she is again staging her special broadcasts to the shut-ins at the military and naval hospitals in the National Capital. EUGENE DUBOIS, noted violist ,has been engaged as concert master of the studio orchestra of WMAQ, Chi cago. Mr. Dubois until five years ago was concert master and soloist for the Chicago Opera Company. Then he went to the Metropolitan Opera Company in New York in the same capacity. For the last two years he has been soloist and concert master in the NBC studios in New York. EARL BURTNETT and his orchestra returned to the Los Angeles Biltmore late in November and their music goes over KECA, Los Angeles, nightly via remote control. The remote line for seven or eight years previously had been a prerogative of KHJ, Los Angeles. KECA's sister station, KFI, on Dec. 1 began to broadcast Jimmy Grier's orchestra nightly from the Cocoanut Grove of the Ambassador hotel. Herbie Kay's collegiate orchestra moved into the Blackhawk Cafe, Chicago, and WGN, Chicago, when the Burtnett aggregation returned to California. RUDOLPH FORST, musical director of WLWL, New York, is the first violinist with the Manhattan Symphony Orchestra this season. RAY KNIGHT, NBC humorist, Mary McCoy, soprano, Elsie Mae Gordon, Walter Preston, the Russian Cathedral Quartet and Joe Rines and his orchestra have been engaged by the Penn Athletic Club in Philadelphia for a program on New Year's Day through NBC Artists Service. ERNEST LA PRADE, assistant to Walter Damrosch, recently returned from a three weeks session on jury duty in Thirty-fourth Street Municipal Court. LEWIS MEEHAN, tenor at KFWB, Hollywood, gave a recital in the Elks' temple, Los Angeles, on Dec. 3 preparatory to leaving for European study tour. L. DANA HAAS, bass-baritone, formerly in vaudeville, is now connected with' WGAL, Lancaster, Pa., and is heard several times weekly. Haas, a native of Lancaster, has been featured in theaters in New York, Newark, Philadelphia and other cities. _ He is also heard in several dramatic presentations. John McCartney, another former member of vaudeville and stock companies, is also appearing over WGAL. McCartney, a native of Scotland, is a baritone soloist and plays the ukelele. ED THORGERSEN, NBC announcer in New York, is a contender for the squash championship of the New York Athletic Club. GUY HEDLUND, formerly with the dramatic department of KFI, Los Angeles, is directing a weekly series of radio skits being transmitted from WTIC. Among the members of the "WTIC Playhouse" company under his direction 'are Bess Beatrice Battey, formerly of WOW, Omaha, and Jay and Fanny Ray, well-known stock company players of the Southwest. JACK BRINKLEY, announcer at WTIC, Hartford, is writing a column entitled "Within the Lines" in the weekly program magazine, Radiolog, published in Boston by Josiah Shamroth and circulated throughout the New England states. ALL WINNERS of the radio diction medal awarded annually by the American Academy of Arts and Letters are "alumni" of Westinghouse radio stations. John W. Holbrook, of the NBC announcing staff, New York, is a former announcer at what is now WBZ, Boston; Milton J. Cross, first winner, also of NBC, began announcing over WJZ, New York, when that station was operated by Westinghouse. Alwyn Bach, NBC winner of last year, also started as an announcer over WBZ. HORTENSE ROSE and George Hall, known as the "Happiness Kids," are back again at WLW, Cincinnati, after a nation-wide tour of various radio stations which ended recently at WTAM, Cleveland. December 15, 1931 • BROADCASTING Page 19